Sesame Field in Bloom

The sesame plants have been growing well and blossoming like crazy. The other morning on the walk to school I enjoyed seeing the fields of white, bell-shaped flowers in the morning light.

Reading Practice

Every Saturday morning there's a prayer meeting at the Parot Church that ends around 9:00. Then a few of the women who were at the prayer meeting usually come by my house to say hi and/or have a little visit and tea. Now that I teach and am not at home on weekdays, this is often my only opportunity to catch up with some of these women, and I enjoy this little tradition we've now established.

Yesterday, two of my Saturday morning "regulars," Abuk M. and Achol D., brought a Dinka literacy book and were practicing reading. They and about 20 other women from the church are part of a literacy class being held at the church each weekday afternoon, courtesy of the NGO Samaritan's Purse (SP). The class is taught by two young men from the church who were trained by SP.

I'm thrilled that these dear friends and others are having the opportunity to learn to read!

Another one of the "regulars," Abuk A., who is a good reader, gave Abuk M. and Achol a little help.

I should give a shout-out here to SP because they have done a wonderful work in our state during the past few years training literacy teachers and offering classes like this in dozens (perhaps hundreds?) of churches. Those who finish the literacy program are given a Dinka New Testament and then are offered a discipleship program that helps them practice reading and grow in their faith. My team has had the privilege of partnering with SP in this program as SP uses our discipleship materials.

New Parot Church Building: Part 3

The roof of the new Parot Church building is almost finished. I don't have any pictures of the church women tying on the bundles of grass for the roof thatching because this was done in late May when I was in Nairobi.

The picture above was taken at the end of the service this past Sunday as people were leaving. The children on the right are carrying chairs they brought to sit on. There isn't much "seating" provided in the church at this point--just a few logs on the ground.

The picture below was taken before the service started, when people were still coming in. You can see the opening at the top of the roof that still needs some additional thatching to be completely closed. The church hopes to soon have the funds necessary to do that.

It's great to worship in the new building. I love looking up at the pattern of the roof supports and thatching, which to me is quite a work of art. Plus the roof is much higher than that of the old building--the latter was so low that unless I sat right on the centre aisle, where the roof was highest, I couldn't stand up completely! And there's lots more room.

Parts 1 and 2 of this series are here and here.

Parable of the Sower Pictures

In their daily Bible lesson, my class has been going through the gospel of Mark. They've also been memorizing Bible verses, including the Parable of the Sower in Mark 4 and Jesus' explanation of its meaning. I had them draw pictures of the four places/soils where the seed is sown. They really enjoyed drawing, colouring and showing off their pictures.

New Parot Church Building: Part 2

Here is the (somewhat belated--sorry!) next post in my series on the construction of the new Parot church building. You can find Part 1 here.  The pictures in this post were taken in late April before the rains had started, so things were still very brown and dry.

As you can see in the picture above, at this point, large centre posts had been set in the ground to support the roof and posts laid horizontally between the tops of them. Other smaller supporting posts had also been set in the ground. Beams had been installed between the perimeter support posts and the cross-posts at the peak of the roof.  

The picture below shows in inside view of the various roof support posts and beams. Two men were working on the roof to attach the bundles of small sticks on which the roof thatching would be laid.

A helper passes up a bundle of sticks.

The sticks are laid in place and then tied together and to the support posts with strips of palm leaf.

The fellow below was making the palm leaf ties.

Picking Kudura

I was out in Kenya for most of May and came back ten days ago to a much greener environment than when I left. There have been some good rains the past month and people have been busy sowing sorghum, sesame and pumpkin.

One of the many little wild plants that have sprung up is called "kudura." It's very popular with my women neighbours, who use it in one of the sauces that they make to go with their "kuin," the stiff porridge that is their food staple.

Our schoolyard has some grassy parts where there is quite a bit of kudura. The first days of the week, at every recess, most of my class, boys included, was out picking kudura to take home for their moms (or grandmas or aunts). They would come in from recess with hands full of kudura bouquets. Towards the end of the week the picking dropped off--perhaps there wasn't much left to pick!

New Parot Church Building: Part 1

On the left and below are pictures of the Parot Community Church building. As you can see, it has fallen into quite a state of disrepair.


For the past nine months, the congregation has been taking special offerings to collect funds to build a new church.  The construction finally started mid-March.

The new church will have mud walls and a thatched roof, just like most of the houses in Parot. Instead of building the walls first, though, the builders started with the roof; once it's done, the walls will be built.

Because the rainy season usually starts in April, the goal was to have the roof on before the rains came, and then be able to build the walls with some protection from the rain.

The new church is being built next to the old one. The first step in the building process is to dig holes and put in the poles that go around the perimeter of the building to help support the roof. 

I went over one Saturday morning to see the work. The fellows working are young men from the church. They dig the holes using a long tool with a small metal blade on the end. 

The holes have to be quite deep in order to provide a good support for the poles.

Near the top left in the picture above, you can see a lot of slim branches. These will be placed into the forks of the support poles and wrapped and tied in place with split palm leaves.

While the men were working, church ladies were busy making tea for them.

At the end of the day, I went over to see what the men had accomplished. They had really worked hard, as you can see below. They had finished the perimeter posts and the support branches that go on top of them.